General Update #21

Hello again.

This month has mostly been a challenge in getting all the new changes I want with the latest enemy, the Dragon Guard, done. There's been a lot of trial and error with her, a lot of treading new ground, on top of just the extra animation work she needs. All her animations and such are done, it's mostly just systems I've been working on. For example I've made a few passes at a better detection system. I've tried the direction cone along with a sphere around here that'll detect you when nearby. It was working as intended. If you were in the cone she spotted you, if you were behind her she knew. The issue came up when I started working on the systems that rely on detection. They started to break a lot, and with the way some of it is set up I started to see the headache that was ahead of me with the cone detection system. So I went back and revised a different method, and then another. But I started realizing, as I often do, that I was spending far too much time on it when I could've been working on just pushing out a build and redesigning it again later. That being said she does at least use the new hitboxes, which every other enemy will probably also use from here on out.

Besides that a few smaller systems got some additions. For example when you save the game the player character will bathe in the tub while you do that. I plan for there to be some interactions with NPCs and that further down the line.

All the work left that needs to get done on the new enemy is that she needs sound implemented, and then the dungeon area as a whole.

Looking at the next build release I'm on the fence with how I should present it. If I just release the entire dungeon area now then people would be able to find all the hidden areas without much opposition. I think I'll introduce the new area bit by bit as enemies come out, and honestly I'm wondering if I should start just releasing builds whenever a new enemy is available just so there's something for the supporters beyond reading about progress.

I think I might hold a poll at some point but I'm honestly not sure how much engagement it would get.

Besides that I'm gonna work doubletime to finish off the new enemy and just push something out that hopefully people will appreciate.

As always a big thank you to the supporters for sticking around!